A blog about video games and not much else. Updates at intervals of time.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Final Fantasy 6: A Character Focused Narrative

I am no expert on
narrative critique. No objective authority on how to craft a story. This post I’m
going to explain what makes good writing as though it were objective fact, because
to do otherwise would diminish my point. This is something that no one else
would make a disclaimer for, but I’m slowly weaning myself off my crippling addiction
to qualifying statements, so cut me some slack on this one. I’ve only been
writing this blog for over three years, surely I’ll get better at it eventually.

Today we’re going to talk
about the story to Final Fantasy 6. Specifically, we’re going to talk about why
I think it’s well-written and engaging, despite having notable problems. Many
issues I have with it stem from length more than anything else. I want more
development on this character, or more banter and interaction between
characters, or more exploration of some concept in the world. Curious and looking
to confirm a suspicion, I found a transcript of all the game’s dialogue up on
the internet. It came out to about 18,000 words, not counting optional
interactions with non-player characters.

So it’s about half the
length of one of my articles? HEY-OOOOOO!

This may seem like a lot,
but consider the following. This is a game I spent over 40 hourson. It has a
cast of fourteen playable characters.
That’s not even counting important non-playable characters like the major
villains. On average each of your party members has about 100 lines in the
game, not counting the 3 secret characters. Those have so few lines you can
literally count them on your fingers.

Not only does the game
have a limited amount of dialogue for each character, much of it is wasted on very
utilitarian lines. Things like asking basic questions, giving exposition, or
curt verbal responses. Even when saying something worthwhile, the dialogue is
often mediocre. No doubt in part due to poor localization, a lot of it feels
awkward or stilted. It’s rare that I see a line which both conveys character
and sounds natural.

Although the dialogue
does have its moments.

On top of that, the story
and characters in Final Fantasy 6 are all pretty simple, conceptually. Magic
used to be everywhere, but there was a big war and now it’s not. A big mean
evil empire wants to use the power of magic to rule everything. You stop them.
There are some twists along the way, but apart from one fairly novel turn the
story is as cliché as they come. The characters all start as really broad and
trope-heavy. Yet plenty of people have fond memories of this story, and I don’t
think it’s merely nostalgia. So what is it? Why is this story with so many
flaws memorable and well-executed?

The short answer is:
Final Fantasy 6 absolutely nails the basic elements of storytelling. The
shorter answer is: Characters. As for the long answer...

Why Characters Matter

Characters are the single
most important part of storytelling. Not the setting, not the plot. Those
things matter, certainly, but if you have to sacrifice one of the three, it
should never be characters. Plenty of good stories feature uninteresting or standard
settings. Many feature archetypal or predictable plots. But if a story has dull,
one-dimensional characters, then it is no longer a story that people want to
read. Emotional investment drives everything, and characters are the conduit that
delivers it. A good setting is the canvas for an interesting story. A good plot
is the blueprint for an interesting story to step through. But the stories
themselves are all about the characters, and how they react to that setting and
plot.

To keep this focused on
video games, I have an example in mind. Mass
Effect is a series of sci-fi action RPGs from the company BioWare, who are often
praised for having some of the best writing in games. Mass Effect 2 is the highest rated of the trilogy, and is extremely
well-loved throughout the gaming public. It won all sorts of awards, to the
point where it has its own Wikipedia page solely for listing them.
It’s frequently called one of the greatest games of all time.

Here’s another
interesting fact: The main plot of Mass Effect 2 is a mess of steaming, smelly
garbage. The game starts by tossing out an unestablished deus ex machina that abruptly
rips apart the entire status quo the first game built up. It then immediately uses
another unestablished deus ex machina to restore most of said status quo. The
game forces you to work with a former enemy for poorly justified reasons and
gives you little opportunity to even voice concern. Said enemy is a hollow all-knowing
exposition machine who has little personality beyond that. The majority of the
main plot consists of tired video game tropes such as going to a place to find
a MacGuffin. The story is also
entirely pointless in terms of the trilogy itself. The beginning of the game establishes
a filler villain who we have no investment in, they’re defeated by the end of
the game, and the original antagonists are still out there completely
unchanged. You could skip it and lose nothing of the overall plot. This isn’t
even a complete listing of the flaws with the main story, and I’m not the only one who feels this way about it.

“Shepard, as your
known enemy I have an important task for you.”

“Is it stopping the
dozens of reapers bent on destroying all intelligent life in the universe?”

“What? Reapers? No I’m
sure that’ll sort itself out when they get here. We’ve got these bug-men that
killed a couple towns, and if we’re not careful they’ll be as threatening as an
entire reaper!”

I’m not saying this
because I have something against Mass Effect 2, but to prove a point. In spite
of this plot which is mediocre at best, Mass Effect 2 is widely adored. It’s often
specifically praised for its writing. As you may have seen coming, the reason
for this is the characters. Mass
Effect 2 has some fantastically well-written character moments. The majority of
Mass Effect 2 isn’t spent on the main plot. Instead, it’s spent on:

1. Building a team of
unique and interesting characters for a mission.

2. Going on side missions
with those characters that flesh out their backstories and character arcs,
while letting you discuss things with them.

3. A climax that, though
it has no effect on the greater plot or setting, has life-or-death consequences
for your team of characters based on the choices you make.

In spite of how important
they are, many video games don’t spend enough time on the characters. Games,
particularly those with a narrative focus, are pretty lengthy. Unlike movies,
they have to spend dozens of hours stretching their premise to provide
appropriate amounts of gameplay. This is difficult enough to do while maintaining
any sort of pacing to a story, but the writers often make things worse by
keeping digressions focused on the plot. They’ll have you go after a MacGuffin,
circumvent a door, perform side quests for people whose help you need, and so
on. It’s preferable to avoid filler like this altogether, but failing that far
more of it should be about characters.

Don’t make your story
about the magical orb or master sword. Make it about the person using it.

At every single point in a story you should be asking yourself: How
will this affect the characters? Can I use this part of the plot to build
characters, or give them interesting interactions with each other? If the
answer to those questions is no, you probably want to rewrite that part of the
story entirely. Good characters don’t have to be that complex. You can have
very standard character tropes like noble warriors or charismatic thieves, and
then give them simple tweaks. Not every character moment has to be a big
production, either. You could have characters talk about things as simple as
their favorite foods and still provide more interesting scenes than any plot
door.

So hopefully I’ve
convinced you of the importance of character-building in video games and
stories in general. Now let’s final-ly bring this back to Final Fantasy 6.

The Advantages of an Ensemble Cast

Final Fantasy 6 is fairly
unique among games in that is has an ensemble cast. What this means is that
there is no main character in the game. This is enforced in a number of ways.
The first half or so of the game frequently changes perspectives to different
groups of characters. None of them are made out to be more important than the
others. After some events I refuse to spoil, the party goes separate ways for
the last leg of the game. In this portion, you can go to the final battle at
any point you desire, with as few as 3 party members. But all the 8 other main
characters (and 3 secret ones) are out in the world somewhere. They’ve all been
doing something in your absence, often things that reflect upon what type of
person they are.

For example, one you
find doing paintings for people because, uh...she’s a painter. Look not
everyone has an equally satisfying arc.

I think this is a great
way to structure a game. That isn’t to say that all or even most games should
have ensemble casts. I think far more should give it a try though. Such stories
are rare yet uniquely suited to games and their lengthier run-time than movies.
But even if a story has a single protagonist, most video games have a
supporting cast. In RPGs, that supporting cast is often playable and gets
plenty of screen time. And yet most games squeeze in character development when
they can, in the cracks between their labyrinthine series of plot developments.
Focusing a story on the characters should be the rule, not the exception.

Again, FF6 doesn’t
succeed due to masterful storytelling or even spending a huge amount of
dialogue. It merely executes the basics of character development, and does it
well. All 11 main characters have a backstory. By backstory I don’t mean an
offhand mention that they were doing something before. I mean every character
has some past life, usually with some pivotal event, that defines who they are.
The backstories aren’t really anything revolutionary. A suspiciously high
number of them have tragically deceased loved ones. But the game makes it clear
that past events affect the character, and inform the arc they go through in
the game.

Speaking of, most party
members have character arcs as well. By the time they travel with you to the
final encounter, they are different people than they when you first met. They’ve
confronted their past problems, concluded things about themselves, and moved on
with their lives. The sequences where they do so aren’t long. They don’t give
massive walls of text about each person, but they get what’s important. They
hint at more complex characters then they actually have space to describe.

For example, Kefka’s
portrayal hints at him being an enormous god damn psychopath.

...I feel like I’m not
choosing the best images to illustrate my points.

This is how the simple
nature of the story and characters in FF6 actually works to its advantage. By
making each character so familiar and understandable at their core, it becomes very
obvious what type of personality everyone has. This makes it clear when they
confront problems and grow as characters. It’s easy to overcomplicate characters
when writing them. If you try to write them as complex from the outset, they
typically end up muddled and fail to leave a lasting impression on people.
Especially in a setting like this with so many characters and so little
dialogue between them, starting with a defined archetype and building on it is
far more successful.

Something interesting to
note is that the previous Final Fantasy games did not have the quality of
writing this one did. I have yet to play Final Fantasy 5, but 1-3 had barely
any story at all, and the story in 4 was fairly rudimentary. The characters
weren’t as vibrant, many didn’t have backstories, and only a few had fumbling,
questionably executed character arcs. The staff didn’t change either. I don’t
know what happened in the mere 3 years between FF4 and FF6, and I’m not saying
that they became expert wordsmiths in between. But whatever lessons they learned
about writing were important ones.

Pictured: The complex
character arcs of Final Fantasy 4.

It’s worth mentioning
again that the writing in FF6 still has problems. I find it a shame that the
secret characters get nothing to work with. I’m sure development budget was
tight, but making an hour long dungeon leading to a character with a unique gameplay
mechanic, you’d think they could give him more than 3 lines of dialogue. Even
some of the non-secret characters have rather rushed or insubstantial arcs. The
freeform character recruiting of the last act has several advantages, but it
also causes a couple problems. Since its unknown what characters are in your
party at any time, inter-party member dialogue almost stops entirely. The
villain is tossed aside at this point as well, reduced to waiting for you in
the final dungeon. It would be nice if they could at least give them a distant
presence by having them send troops after you or something. Speaking of troops,
the gameplay can screw with the pacing. The further you get into the game the
more the long treks through dungeons full of random encounters wears on you.

Having said all this, the
writing in Final Fantasy 6 is good, and it’s a big part of why the game is so
beloved. I’ve avoided spoiling anything because I can recommend the game and it
is abundantly available. FF6 can be
found on the Super Nintendo, Playstation 1 (and consequently Playstation 2), Game
Boy Advanced, Nintendo Wii (and consequently Wii U), Playstation 3, and even a
recent Mobile release with updated visuals. Give it a look if you like the
sound of it.

I’m not done talking
about the game yet though. In my first post I discussed the gameplay mechanics,
which were average, with upsides and downsides. In this second post I discussed
the writing, which has some problems but is still great in its own right. If
this series were to follow a natural progression, my last post would have to be
me just gushing excitedly about something for a thousand words or more.

...next post I’ll be
talking about the music of FF6. Look for it soon.